1. A good prescription starts with a good diagnosis.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, expedience is the prevailing mode. This mindset can be counterproductive, however. Hastily writing a bunch of questions and launching a study often ends in disappointing results.

We don’t work this way. We take time to examine the business issue and clearly identify the objectives of the research. Then we apply disciplined thinking and creativity to design a questionnaire or discussion guide that delves into the real issues. We work this way because, at the end of the day, a prescription does nothing if the diagnosis is wrong.

2. Consumers can’t tell the future, so we don’t ask them to.

Consumers will tell us anything—we just don’t know if it’s the truth. It’s not that they’re lying, it’s just that they’re not very good at predicting their future behavior. Marketers who still let the “voice of the consumer” guide them do so at a great risk. Today, the answer is clear – “consumer led is dead.”

We seek to understand people not by what they say, but by what they do. We rely on observation-based methods and projective techniques that mine the subconscious and yield more reliable answers. We study consumer behavior in the present in a way that helps inform the future.

3. Respondents are people, not data points.

Researchers once achieved 60-80% response rates in surveys. Today, most market research surveys generate less than a 20% response rate. Further, the quality of the research information is increasingly unreliable.

We believe the fault lies with the research, not the respondent. In fact, calling people respondents highlights the problem: these are people were dealing with, not data points.

Winning the cooperation of the people in a study is critically important to getting valid and reliable results. We build studies that are fun, respectful of people’s time, and make them feel their contributions are valued.

4. Data is not the same as insight.

Show us a person with a 50-page research deck, and we’ll show you a person with a mountain of data, but only a sliver of insight. This is because most researchers are better at collecting information than explaining behavior.

We won’t give you data. We will give you insight supported by data. Our mission is to separate the meaningful from the trivial. Anyone can collect data, but it takes talent to find the insight.

5. Research design is an art as much as a science.

Marketers today tend to put all their research eggs in one research basket. Too often they try to create the “holy grail” research study that will give them the definitive answer they want. Unfortunately, it rarely works this way. Research is not a study; research is a process.

There is no best way to do research and rarely is there a single study robust enough to provide the complete answer. To get it right, you must study the problem from multiple vantages.

We prefer “mixed method” research designs, relying on a variety of viewpoints and data collection methods. Sometimes referred to as “triangulation” or “bricolage,” this approach provides more breadth and depth of understanding, corroboration and reliability.